Who the Heck Are Yer?

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Come on, big mouth, ​get it out!!

Well, first up, our names are Bronwyn and Lex. We live in Melbourne, Australia.

Lex started to read the Mma Ramotswe novels as part of his interest in crime fiction. Bronwyn, who rarely reads fiction, was interested in what Lex said about the gentleness of the novels, combined with Mma Ramotswe's philosophy of life.

As Sandy McCall Smith constantly repeats, these are not really crime novels. They are more character studies.

Bronwyn has family in South Africa, and has visited them there, and has a great liking for rooibos tea, or red tea, or redbush tea (it's all the same thing, the wonderful

We all know Africa is a continent full of all sorts of problems. Bronwyn and I keep up with all of that ... But what a wonderful thing it is to have a counter-balance, showing Africans can run a very successful country, and are, on the whole, like people everywhere, wonderfully kind and generous people.

Sandy has been criticised for this aspect of his novels, but he makes the point there are many great authors writing about the troublesome Africa. He is simply attempting to show a greater depth to Africa and its people than constant disaster stories can tell.

Above are cousins Vicki, Ricki, and Ticki, with their new babies. Even though bears and us are completely different species, we get on well. We've adopted this lot below into our koala family. Now there's been a bit of intermarriage since they came to Australia. Good thing, too. It makes for much more interesting dinner table conversations!

Some photies of a few adoptedbear rellies

Cousin Ken, trying to pick his nose

Uncle Bert, when he finds we've pinched his beer

More about us. (Lucky you!)

You may also have guessed that the photies of "bears" around and about are not of us. In fact, there are no bears in Australia, apart from those brought in by greedy turds who used to treat them cruelly. Our rellies are descended from some of these who were lucky to escape into the bush over 100 years ago.

And no, the koala "bear" is clearly not a "bear", and we've been here since long before bears or the horrid turds.

Now, what else? We're unmarried partners who have, at the time of writing (April, '17), been together very happily for over 30 years.

We're lucky to have two male cubs, one 19 & with 18 months of a film course at uni under his belt, and one of 16 in Year 11.

Bronwyn's in paid employment with a consultancy firm, where she's a star.

Lex worked for various governments as a policy and legislation development and implementation bod and general-purpose writer and analyst from 1979-1997.

Then he ran his own consultancy, writing, and educational business for a few years, then spent 1999 & 2000 at uni having a great time studying criminology and education.

He slaved over a hot whiteboard as a teacher in the noughties, before a slow-moving breakdown finally polished him off in 2010.

Cousin Walt, trying to figure out who farted. Having known him for yonks, I'll bet Liberace's fake diamonds it was him. Ooooh, stinkeroomie! I think I'm going to die. Okay, who fed him the beans?

The Anderson triplets learning to moondance. They're in the running to back Lady GaGa next time she visits our shores. I hope they get it, the Anderson's are being a right pain in the rear end about it.

Whoops! That one shouldn't be in here. That's Bert Anderson and Marg Callisto smooching. Oh, dear, I hope their partners haven't seen this. Oh, holy wallops, Batman, how the heck do I get rid of this? Umm ... Batman ... are you out there? Oh, buggrit!

Little show-off Cousin Rodney

Heh, they'll be

tellin' yer their

life stories next!

Bloody narcissists!

Auntie Ethel and those bullies, the Ayer triplets

The Callisto triplets, looking for a leg to chew!

Great Uncle Ferdie "resting his eyes" after one of our beer-b-qs

Cute little Cousin Ferdie (named after our Great Uncle) with his first teddy human.

Darn tootin'. We're not going to let this opportunity to bore the britches off people without getting our quid's worth out of it. Besides, humans look so funny without their britches!

We have two moggie cats (in 2016) in addition to our cubs. One fluffy grey 9 year old, Smokey Bear, who has lived his life inside, so he doesn't kill native birds.

Smokey was mistreated as a tiny kitten, and no amount of love has rid him of his extremely shy and tense character.

The other cat is now a former cat (2017, sob, sob). Her name was Greebo, and Terry Pratchett fans may pick up why she was given that moniker, even though his Greebo is a different gender.

She was black, and definitely not fluffy. She was very elderly when she condescended to live with us, and had a huge, huge, huge, sore on her back which turned out to be skin cancer which had started to go nutso through her system.

She was incredibly vicious at first, tearing our flesh and hissing. She'd spent a life surviving, although she was someone's pet once as she'd been spayed.

We ended up spending about $10,000 on her medical conditions over the 12 months she was with us, but there's no doubt she gave us far more than we gave her. There goes our pension! But we both firmly believe when an animal adopts you, you owe it as good a life as you can manage.

As time went on she became a loving addition to our family, although we had to keep her separate from Smokey Bear. Towards the end she even spent the nights sleeping up our end of the bed, between us.

In the middle of the night we would sometimes wake up to this

incredibly loud diesel truck driving off, but it was just Greebo purring for no discernible reason other than she was very happy.

But while she managed three major operations standing on her head, after all, she was a great survivor, the last one took it out of her.

The vets pointed out that when, not if, the cancer came back they could operate but her chances of survival would be slim, it would cost a bomb, and she would be left very ill afterwards, and the cancer would come back again anyway.

So we did what we can't do for our best human friends, we enabled her to leave life painlessly and stress free, purring to the end.

It's been several months now (November, 2016), but we think of her every day, and we miss her every day. And that's still so in April, 2017.

Now, what else? Lex plays the saxophone. Which sax? The tenor, of course. All music is improved with a tenor sax! He's also trying to learn the didgeridoo, but he seems to be the only member of the family who can't blurt with his lips.

Bronwyn and Lex both knit. Lex in particular finds it meditational. Lex took knitting up again when he was ill after having to give up teaching. He was taught to knit by his mum when he was four. He's still got a scarf he knitted, and the teddies he knitted it for.

Brownwyn loves photography, and has recently bought a very nice camera, but sadly her job and the tasks she still does at home limit the time she can give to a hobby.

Location

(sort of!)

GrumpyKoala's comments

(without the swearing!)

1. We would love to hear from you. Please email us.

2. Please click on an ad and buy something. African girls need help to achieve anywhere near their potential, and like it or not that's the best way to achieve positive change in the great but desperate continent of Africa. Money spent on this will benefit us immensely in future years (that last sentence is for those with cash who don't understand that giving simply to help people is in itself reason enough!).

3. The map points to our location, sort of.

4.Google, why the flying farts have you labelled Australia "Oceania"? Don't get me wrong, I know that's our region. But the continent is "Australia". Or perhaps it's changed since I went to school? Or is it just another case of the United States ignoring the sensibilities of a powerless country?

5. Oh, and koalas are koalas, not bloody bears! Or unbloody bears, for that matter!!

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